Past Exhibition Development Seminar Projects

Students from Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) worked with guest curator George Ciscle to present the first retrospective of the Baltimore-based artist Elizabeth Talford Scott in Eyewinkers, Tumble Turds and Candlebugs: The Art of Elizabeth Talford Scott at MICA’s Meyerhoff and Decker galleries. Born in 1916 in South Carolina on the land her family worked as sharecroppers and where previously her grandparents had worked as slaves, Elizabeth Talford Scott learned the art of piecing cloth from her mother. This retrospective exhibition opened as the artist turned 82, and included her extraordinary quilting work—embroidered and beaded fabrics, ornamented with stones, buttons, shells, bones, and other unexpected materials. Her vibrantly colored and reflective cloths from around the world were assembled into asymmetrical shapes and patterns that expanded and strayed away from the traditional concept of quilt making. The stories these creations tell and the universal images evoked enabled the viewer to recall two related and significant legacies: African aesthetic traditions before and after slavery in the South and Euro-American design traditions. The MICA students worked closely with Ciscle, participating in the curatorial process and developing outreach activities and the Learning Center. This exhibition traveled to the Smithsonian Institution, New England Quilt Museum, and Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art.

1998 The Marlborough Art Project

For The Marlborough Art Project, curator-in-residence George Ciscle and students from MICA honored the memory and legacy of modern art collectors Etta and Claribel Cone in an unlikely way: They worked with current residents of the Cone sisters’ former apartment building to express their personal histories creatively. The Cone sisters began acquiring modern art treasures in 1898, and eventually amassed roughly 3000 objects with which they decorated their rooms in Marlborough Apartments at Eutaw Place. After the sisters’ passing, their collection moved to the Baltimore Museum of Art, and Marlborough Apartments itself underwent many changes: first being converted to low-income housing units, then to housing for the elderly. Working with artist Maria Teresa Fernandez, the class conceived of a plan for 20 current Marlborough residents to create artworks that reflected their life experiences, their understandings of the history of the building they call home, and their relationships to the larger Baltimore community. These artworks were eventually featured in a permanent exhibition installed in Marlborough’s community room.

Newly created works of sculpture and installation art by three Baltimore artists--Linda Bills, Jann Rosen-Queralt, and Jason Swift—served as the focal point for the two non-sequential parts of Subject to Change, an exhibition in the Decker Gallery of the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) curated by George Ciscle in collaboration with students from The Curatorial Experience class. Part II, subtitled Change is the Subject, differed from Part I in that the art, its presentation, and virtually everything about the exhibition were, in fact, subject to change. With endless possibilities, the responses and reactions of the artists, students, and public to Part I influenced Part II. Critical analysis of the artist’s work and the exhibition’s written materials addressed potential recommendations for the re-installation or re-vision of Change is the Subject. All three artists excel in transforming man-made and natural materials into deceivingly simple and minimal containers, vessel, and machines. References to tools, agricultural implements, architecture, and anatomical parts are simultaneously revealed and concealed in their sculptures and installations. Their works of art welcome the viewer’s participation through both implied and actual movement.

2000Joyce J. Scott Kickin' it with the Old Masters

Students at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) joined forces to present a landmark exhibition celebrating the 30-year career of Joyce J. Scott, an internationally recognized multimedia and performance artist from Baltimore, MD. Curated by MICA faculty member and Curator in Residence George Ciscle, Joyce J Scott Kickin' it with the Old Masters illustrated a full range of Scott’s fiber art, beaded sculpture, prints, site-specific installations and performance art in dialogue with the BMA’S collection. From racism and violence to sexism and stereotypes, Scott’s work offers her provocative interpretations of significant contemporary issues, and stood as a bridge between the Old Master paintings visitors expect to see at art museums and contemporary American society.

2002 Situated Realities: Where Technology and Imagination Intersect

This exhibition examined the way computed images mediate our sense of what is real and what it means to be human at the turn of the 21st century. Situated Realities: Where Technology and Imagination Intersect was curated by the Director of MICA’s MFA in Photography and Digital Imaging, Will Larson, and developed through a unique, two year collaboration with forty MICA students participating in Exhibition Development Seminar. Represented in the exhibition were thirty internationally renowned artists whose works, created over the last decade, revealed incredible advances in photographic and computer imaging technology. The show embraced the expressive possibilities of rapidly evolving digital technology while exploring what persists about being human in a culture shaped largely by technology and science. This exhibition traveled to the Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California and to the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

Everlasting began with an oral history project in which Ann Fessler collected the personal narratives of women who had surrendered children for adoption from the Baltimore/Washington, D.C., region in the period from World War II (1945) through Roe v. Wade (1973). Everlasting wove these narratives into an audio tapestry that revealed the unheard voices of those who are often omitted from stories of adoption. In this exhibition, the women who allowed themselves to be interviewed all gave birth to “illegitimate” children at ages ranging from 15 to 32 years old. Some felt placing their babies in adoptive homes was the best option, while others were coerced into surrendering their children. Presented in conjunction with Everlasting was the reconfigured 2001 work, Close to Home, which combines a physical installation (corn cribs and feed corn) that provides the physical sights and smells of the rural Midwest of Fessler’s childhood with audio and video by the artist. The installation provided many angles from which the viewer could experience the artist’s search for information about the woman who gave birth to her. Everlasting was the sixth major exhibition project for the Exhibition Development Seminar and was featured in MICA’s Decker Gallery.

Every 20 years or so, underground comics go through a cultural revolution. Today, the underground has gone “overground” with the proliferation of new creators working in a wide array of media and appearing everywhere from The New Yorker and The Wall Street Journal to limited-edition, self-published comics and handsome, oversized books. With high-profile films and graphic novels, comics are in the public eye like never before. MICA examines this phenomenon by bringing together many of the most important artists reconceiving the nature of comics with a groundbreaking exhibition exploring contemporary comics culture. Curator and comics enthusiast Paul Candler and students from the Exhibition Development Seminar brought together 39 artists in MICA’s Decker Gallery. These artists were either featured in or inspired by the groundbreaking publications Raw and Weirdo, which sought to move comic art beyond the clichés of adolescent superheroes through a brilliant fusion of the underground comics scene from the 1960s and 1970s. This exhibition originated as Raw, Boiled, and Cooked at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco in 2000 and opened in an expanded format at MICA. The exhibition traveled to the Sonoma Museum of Visual Art and the Chicago Cultural Center.

Lawson Oyekan and the spirit of nature is the retrospective of Nigerian born, London based ceramicist Lawson Oyekan, presented in MICA’s Decker gallery. Through his art, his presence as artist-in-residence, and his participation in many community-based activities, Lawson Oyekan freely and generously invited students into his world, sharing the personal and communal experiences that are at the heart of his work, giving students the opportunity to witness first-hand the creative process. It is to Lawson’s pervasive nature and spirit that this project is dedicated. During his residency at MICA, Lawson Oyekan facilitated ongoing interactions with art students and the larger Baltimore community. This community-oriented, collaborative project formed the basis of a new body of work, which is directly linked to the artist’s experiences at MICA and in Baltimore. This is the first Exhibition Development Seminar class that required students to participate in both semesters of the two-semester course.

2007At Freedom's Door: Challenging Slavery in Maryland

At Freedom’s Door: Challenging Slavery in Maryland was a massive two-venue exhibition examining Maryland’s integral relationship to the history of slavery in the United States by exploring the resistance to slavery from enslaved and free people of Maryland, as well as the state’s participation in the institution and perpetuation of slavery. The changing definition and perceptions of freedom were also examined from both historical and contemporary perspectives through artifacts, accounts, and the work of contemporary artists including Hank Willis Thomas, Whitfield Lovell, and William Christenberry. More than 35 students from Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and Morgan State University committed to participating in two consecutive years of Exhibition Development Seminar, and engaged at a professional level in every aspect of the development and installation of this major exhibition, including the research, planning, and production. At Freedom’s Door: Challenging Slavery in Maryland was exhibited at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture (RFLM) and the Maryland Historical Society (MdHS).

Beyond the Compass, Beyond the Square was a site-specific outdoor exhibition installed in Mount Vernon Place conceived and curated by students in MICA’s Exhibition Development Seminar. Inspired by and exploring themes of the Walter’s Art Museum’s Maps: Finding Our Place in the World, the show served as a component of Baltimore’s city-wide Festival of Maps. Beyond the Compass, Beyond the Square featured contemporary art by 10 emerging MICA artists employing interactivity, exploring new and abstract ways of understanding historical mapping concepts, and reflecting on myriad approaches to mapping and way-finding. Tours, lectures, activities and educational programs for all ages enhanced the exhibition experience.

Follies, Predicaments, and Other Conundrums: The Works of Laure Drogoul invited visitors to immerse themselves in a paradoxical, absurdist world of darkness, wonder, and beauty. Drogoul's sculptural follies, roving performances, and interactive works draw upon B-movie imagery, science fiction, psychoanalytic theory, and pop culture–particularly roadside Americana. Along the way the artist explores and exploits the symbiotic relationships and tensions between humanity and nature, creating works that have a uniquely accessible Baltimore aesthetic. Follies, Predicaments, and Other Conundrums: The Works of Laure Drogoul was conceived by its curator Gerald Ross, organized and produced in partnership with Exhibition Development Seminar, and presented in the Decker and Meyerhoff galleries at MICA.

2010Bearing Witness: Works by Bradley McCallum & Jacqueline Tarry

Bearing Witness is a multi-venue mid-career survey of over a decade of work by the husband and wife collaborative team Bradley McCallum and Jacqueline Tarry organized by the Contemporary Museum and the Maryland Institute College of Art’s 2009-2010 Exhibition Development Seminar. First, curators sought to present an exhibition that connected McCallum and Tarry’s community and advocacy-based projects with their studio and gallery-based video, painting, and installation works. The shared theoretical underpinnings and art-historical context for the works had rarely been acknowledged, and in presenting the projects together for the first time, curators revealed the layered conceptual, aesthetic, and historic threads in their practice. Second, given the powerful content of McCallum and Tarry’s work, which addresses such themes as urban violence, homelessness, race relations, and representation, the exhibition sought to create meaningful connections between the art and Baltimore’s local issues, histories, and communities. Satellite exhibitions featured McCallum and Tarry’s collaborative video, painting, and installation works at the Contemporary Museum, Maryland Art Place, Carroll Mansion, Shot Tower, Walters Art Museum and Reginald F. Lewis African American Museum and MICA.

2011Baltimore: Open City

Baltimore: Open City is an exhibition and a series of interactive events intended to initiate a discussion around the idea of an "open city". The students have invited scholars, activists, community-based organizations, local artists and visiting artist Damon Rich to develop a series of installations and public programs at the North Avenue Market and throughout the city. These events coincided with National Fair Housing Month, to investigate the ways in which people feel welcome or unwelcome in Baltimore neighborhoods. The Exhibition Development Seminar class defines an open city as "a place where everyone feels welcome, regardless of such things as wealth, race or religion. In every neighborhood of an open city, one feels like he or she belongs." The students question, "does Baltimore feel open, or does housing discrimination, bad public transportation and the privatization of public space separate people and create an uneven distribution of opportunity?" Visitors are invited to join in this exploration of what a more open city might look and feel like.

2012 Undercover

The 2012 Exhibition Development Seminar class examines the continuously shifting definition of shelter through the interdisciplinary group exhibition, Under Cover in MICA’s Decker gallery. The show explores how private dwellings and public spaces have begun to merge—and how, as a result, concepts of and expectations for shelter, protection, and privacy have been irrevocably altered. Densely populated cities, surveillance of the public, and digital overexposure of personal information has contributed to dissolving the boundary between public and private space. As public domain continues to advance, perhaps the only shelter left is in the privacy of the mind.

Preach! New Works by Jeffrey Kent debuted a politically and historically engaged new body of work by Jeffrey Kent ’10 (LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting), a Baltimore-based artist, MICA graduate and EDS alumnus. Through a series of interrelated paintings, sculptures, and multimedia works, Kent confronted an argument within the black Christian community regarding marriage equality. The artist pinpointed what he views as a paradox: that some members of a community that has fought institutionalized discrimination do not endorse marriage rights for same-sex couples. Kent summed up his argument in three words: “Equal is equal.” In his large-scale paintings, Kent depicts black archetypal characters protesting for and against state ballot initiatives and surrounded by ﬂat ﬁelds of garish color. Authentic slave-picked cotton and appropriated photos from the Civil Rights Movement are embedded in glossy acrylic surfaces, pulling the viewer through American history into current political events. Blindfolded minstrels speak via word bubbles containing backwards text—a signature motif in Kent’s work. Through all of these elements, Kent surveys the powerful roles that religion, race, and gender identity have played in shaping American culture, consciousness, and laws. Curated by the Exhibition Development Seminar at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), Preach! opened at the Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park on Valentine’s Day—February 14, 2013.